A year ago this week two of my Tooting constituents, Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan, were extradited to the USA on terror charges. Both men are British citizens who had been held in British prisons prior to their extradition. Yet, despite facing very serious allegations, they have never formally been charged with any offences in this country.

The last time I briefly spoke to my former schoolmate Talha was just after we completed our A-Level exams in the summer of 1998 at the prestigious private school Dulwich College in southeast London. After spending nearly six years in a British jail awaiting extradition to America on terrorist charges, Syed Talha Ahsan has now faced extradition to America after losing his appeal at the European Court of Human Rights, alongside four other terrorist suspects including the radical preacher Abu Hamza.

If the government is serious about Qatada's terrorist credentials - and it should be - they should be pursuing a solid legal effort to put the al-Qaeda puppet master behind bars for good, in this country, under specific charges that address the totality of his support for mass death.

The decision to extradite Talha Ahsan and keep McKinnon is bad for all of us. It undermines the values that the majority of British citizens hold dear and will damage the trust that many British ethnic minorities feel towards their country.

Babar Ahmad, Talha Ahsan and even Abu Hamza have rights. The demonisation of Abu Hamza has clouded the entire extradition process in the media. Abu Hamza, although outspoken, vociferous and vilified by the media has been used to cover up the injustice that has taken place here.

Extradition, in other words, does nothing for the fight against terrorism. On the contrary, it is a self-serving red-herring designed to conceal the dubious systemic failures of British and American security agencies from public knowledge, while vindicating their unaccountable powers to override the rule of law.

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that six alleged terror suspects could face extradition to the United States. While extensive media coverage have been given to Abu Hamza, who has been convicted of soliciting to murder and stirring up racial hatred and jailed in the UK for seven years, the voices of Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan were almost silent.